New ITF Ranking: Adeleye Takes Giant Leap, Nears Top 10 In Africa

After winning his second consecutive J60 Accra title in Ghana, Nigeria’s Daniel Adeleye has taken a giant leap in the newly-released Junior ITF ranking.

The Lagos-based teenage tennis sensation was in his devastating form as he won back-to-back J60 titles in Ghana to further push himself upwards on the ITF rankings.

And in the recently-released edition of the junior ITF rankings, Adeleye leapt 22 places to reposition himself as Nigeria’s number one junior tennis player on the ITF log.

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From being ranked 287 in the world, the Davis Cup player rose to become 265 in the world, top 12 in Africa and arguably one of the best youngsters around.

In his third week in Ghana, Adeleye is seeded one for the J60 event and will fancy another good outing in Accra to keep his rising stock intact as he pushes for a year-ending all-time high tennis ranking.

Another Nigerian whose rise was not surprising is Lucky Danjuma. After another quarterfinal appearance at the J60 event in Ghana, the Abuja-based young tennis player debuts at 936, cracking the top 1000 ranking spot for the first time ever.

His 121 spots movement is the highest by any Nigerian in the second week of the J60 Accra event and puts him among the top six Nigerian players on the Junior ITF ranking.

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Meanwhile, the race to meet up with Seun Ogunsakin ranked 274 and is Nigeria’s second-highest ranked player on the Junior ITF rankings, took a pleasant turn for Prosperity Ikenna Okonkwo who reached the J60 Accra final last weekend.

Okonkwo, who sits comfortably as Nigeria’s third-highest ranked player on the ITF log, moved 63 places and is now ranked 486 while his closest contender, Franklin Jimoh, dropped six spots to now rank 645 in the world.

Despite a not-so-convincing performance in Ghana, Ibadan-born Mubarak Ganiyu moved 14 places to close the gap between him and Jimoh and now rank 768 in the world.

For the girls, Success Ogunjobi’s much improved performance at the J60 event was evident as she moved a massive 111 places and rank 1471 in the world. Even though this was not enough to threaten Etoro Bassey’s spot, the Ekiti-born youngster, has kept improving over the past few weeks.

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Bassey was also not without her movement on the log, she moved 41 spots and rank 978 in the world while breathing down the neck of Khadijat Mohammed, Nigeria’s number two-ranked player on the ITF junior rankings.

Mohammed, whose stop-start performance in Ghana has not been totally encouraging, is now ranked 947 in the world after moving up 34 places.

Ohunene Yakubu, though, maintains her stronghold at the top of the log as the highest-ranked Nigerian player on the junior ITF rankings with her 471 ranking spot, despite dropping four places. However, if she continues to not play competitions, it may not be too long before another player overtakes her.

14 Nigerian players are currently in Ghana for the third week of the J60 Accra event which served off on Monday, 7 October, 2024.

The coming weeks will be key for the players in their quest to keep up with their rankings and put themselves and Nigeria on the world map of top junior tennis players.